Development Of Ideas Research Articles

The Main Evolutionary Ideas of Modern Biological Kowledge. An Outline of the Historical and Methodological Analysis

The Main Evolutionary Ideas of Modern Biological Kowledge. An Outline of the Historical and Methodological Analysis

Innovative communication of molecular evolution through sound: a biological sonification concert

BackgroundA major challenge of evolutionary biology is making underlying concepts accessible to wide audiences. One method for doing so is to utilise multi-media formats that have potential to engage and inform through entertainment. This pilot study outlines and discusses a sonification concert that integrated musical performance with a range of evolutionary concepts and ideas fundamental to an understanding of evolution, such as protein sequences. We aimed to showcase sound-art objects and live-coding performances created using sonification as a mechanism for presenting complex biological processes to both researcher and non-researchers. We sought to evaluate the effectiveness of this art-adjacent practice for public engagement with evolutionary biology research, and also to gather feedback to guide future events. Toward this end, we held a live concert showcasing biologically-based algorithmic music exploring links between evolutionary biology research, sound art, and musical performance. The event had three main acts: a generative audio-visual piece giving an artistic representation of SARS coronavirus based on a parameter-mapping sonification of protein sequence of the replicase polyprotein; a pre-recorded string ensemble demonstrating the effects of codon selection on translation speed using parameter-mapping sonification; and a live-coded music piece interactively sonifying protein structures.ResultsOur event attracted 90 attendees. We evaluated success using direct observation and written feedback forms with a 58% response rate: 95% of respondents stated they had enjoyed the event and 63% indicated they were inspired by it.ConclusionsPresenting the sonic outputs of sonification research in a concert format showed good potential for the pursuit of public engagement with evolutionary biology research, demonstrating the ability to engage curiosity and inspire an audience while also conveying scientific content alongside the nuanced and complex world of modern evolutionary biology.

An Empire of Development: American Political Thought in Transnational Perspective

This article offers a reconceptualization of US empire by foregrounding a central concept of its theory and practice: development, an ideology and attendant set of material practices that purport to uplift a defined population through political, economic, and social interventions. Because developmental ideology promises benefits and allocates specific roles to different groups, it has worked as a racializing technology, not only defining and assigning clusters of people to hierarchies of different stages but also establishing possibilities, however limited, for movement between these stages. The article demonstrates how developmental ideas and practices have been persistent, if flexible, features across the racialized government of formerly enslaved persons and Native Americans after the Civil War, overseas expansion to the Philippines at the turn of the nineteenth century, and US participation in transnational debates about empire in the early twentieth century and its pursuit of global hegemony after World War II.

Competence-based methodological resources: the experience of forming students’ ecological culture

The presented work provides data on the main trends in the educational assimilation of modern environmental science, the role of its cultural component in the training of future specialists of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Geography of the Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education. They allow us to state that in recent years the environmental training of students has become more multidisciplinary in nature. It dialectically and harmoniously coexists the main provisions of the universal theory of systems, philosophical, evolutionary and other worldview ideas, digital technologies, quantum physics, theory and methodology of cognitive activity and other integral components of modern education. It can be confidently stated that modern ecology has increasingly begun to use an integrated systemic synergetic approach in its development, which has determined an increased role in the observed integration, primarily of its educational and methodological teachers.

Imaginação de políticas alternativas para o desenvolvimento indiano antitóxico

ABSTRACT Worsening joblessness in India is put forward here from the multiple and inter-connected argumentative lens of formal-informal dichotomy by labour productivity differential, market size constraint, labour market flexibility, capital inflows, political constraint, corporate industrialization and welfare economic implications. In the process, the limitations of the classic developmental ideas of Kuznets, Lewis and Schumpeter are critiqued. Thereafter, an alternative policy framework is proposed to achieve economic development focused on employment, equity and environmental uplift. The paper shows how the massive unemployment problem can be managed in India’s democratic set up by departing from conventional wisdom about industrialization.

A forerunner of Darwin in the service of nihilists: the translation and reception of Vestiges in Russia.

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation by Robert Chambers, a Scottish publisher and popular writer, was one of the most influential evolutionary works in the pre-Darwinian age. This article examines the circumstances in which this treatise was published in Russia in 1863 and went through a second printing in 1868. Vestiges was translated into Russian by Alexander Palkhovsky (1831-1907), a former medical student, ideologically close to the nihilist movement, and was initially printed by the radical publisher Anatoly Cherenin, later prosecuted for his ties with revolutionary circles. Vestiges was translated not from the English original, but from a German translation by Karl Vogt. Given the popularity of German materialism among Russian radicals in the 1860s, association with Vogt's name did much to draw attention to the translation. Contrary to Vogt, who took an anti-evolutionary stance while translating Vestiges, Palkhovsky and other nihilists ardently supported evolution in the hope that it would help them combat religious belief. Praising the author of Vestiges for his evolutionary views, Russian radicals at the same time criticized him for numerous references to God, teleological thinking and blindness to social problems. In their attempts to put Vestiges into service, Russian nihilists were similar to English freethinkers of the 1840s. The study of how Vestiges was read and perceived in Russia provides a better understanding of the cross-cultural reception of evolutionary ideas on the eve of Darwin's Origin of Species.

Evolutionary Phases of Big History

The present article is devoted to the issue of unity of laws, patterns and mechanisms of evolution at all its stages and levels of Big History and megaevolution. Despite the enormous differences between cosmic, planetological, chemical, biological, and social evolutions, there are many similarities. There are a lot of important and insightful works on the development of complexity in our Universe and in the course of Big History. Unfortunately, much less studies are devoted to analysis of universal similarities, patterns and rules within Big History. Mostly such research is focused on a few laws of Big History which are usually connected with development of complexity. However, laws in terms of the typological similarity of many patterns and rules in star-galaxy, planetological, chemical, biological and social phases of Big History, are of great importance. In the present article we will consider a number of such important similarities, which, in our opinion, clearly demonstrate the systemic-structural and functional-evolutionary unity of the world at its different levels and in different areas. The understanding of these similarities deepens our perception about all stages of Big History and its regularities, and leads us away from the false idea that social evolution in all aspects is different from the evolution of previous levels. In the first section our key goal is to give our own definitions of evolution which would cover as many variants of evolutionary changes as possible. In the second section we will try to give a rather voluminous and dialectical picture of the unfolding universal evolution instead of a short scheme: cosmic – biological – social. The notions of main and transitional phases of Big History are introduced; and the importance of its planetary and chemical phases is shown. In the third section we will show that one can reveal a number of similarities at all levels and phases of megaevolution, which can be generalized in universal laws, rules, mechanisms, patterns and principles of evolution. One should note that in fact none of the important laws and principles, not any of the important rules of evolution, have been ‘lost’ in the process of transition from lower to higher levels. They were only modified and became more complicated, and there also appeared some new principles and rules (and in retrospect one can see their rudiments at the lowest levels of evolution). Some of these laws and rules are described in this section. In the fourth section we will try to present some evolutionary and philosophical ideas that explain the profound similarity in the laws and patterns of megaevolution at all its levels and phases. In the conclusion we will discuss evolutionary and non-evolutionary matters.

Social Enterprises Impact Assessment: Exploring Alternative Measuring Frameworks

Improved assessments can help to increase the awareness of the successes or failures of the contribution made by social enterprises and events. The challenge is that there is no common standard for social impact assessment. This article aims to contribute to this contemporary discussion on impact measurement of social enterprises and events, proposing a measuring framework. The framework offers utility for inclusive stakeholder collaboration and the incorporation of diverse developmental theories. It highlights the systematic link between contextual insight on states of disequilibrium, opportunities, and developmental ideas. As a diagnostic tool, the socioeconomic impact framework offers utility to stakeholders as it coordinates and guides the processes to identify and communicate a contextual theory of change. It promotes inclusive collaboration reflective processes, offering guidance to stakeholders as they explore insight into the contextual disequilibrium and the opportunity tension it creates, aligned with a theory of change that offers progressive developmental impact.

Somatic evolution of Cancer: A new synthesis

Out of the multiple interpretations of cancers, two predominant ones have been (i) somatic evolution of cheater cells that escape replication regulation and (ii) cancers as non-healing wounds. Both the interpretations have substantial support as well as glaring anomalies but the two along with other possible interpretations have not been put together to make a coherent synthesis. We argue here that mechanisms and pathways to escape the normal regulation of cell proliferation do not need to evolve _de novo_. Mechanisms to override the normal regulation have already evolved for wound healing and tissue regeneration. Almost all of the hallmarks of cancer are also seen in the wound healing process. This suggests that cancer develops not by any _de novo_ gain of function but by exaptation of pre-evolved wound healing functions. Somatic evolution that makes the wound healing triggers constitutive is not mutation limited but selection limited and the selective forces are dependent on the tissue microenvironment. Some mechanisms for such selection have been suggested. Many more need to be investigated. A series of mechanisms have evolved to minimize the risk of cancers which may fail in an altered lifestyle context. We support our synthesis with multiple lines of evidence and also make differential testable predictions. This evolutionary perspective challenges multiple prevalent ideas, suggests novel lines of research and also has translatable implications for cancer prevention.

The Folklore of Evolution in Andrew Lang’s Writings

Abstract This article builds upon Bernard Lightman and Peter Bowler’s works on the non-Darwinian nature of Victorian evolution, arguing that while their arguments helpfully reorient our understanding of evolution’s historiography, they underestimate the diversity of evolutionary theory in the Victorian era. Victorian evolution was highly idiosyncratic, as each individual (scientist, author, or reader) interpreted evolution according to his or her own preconceptions, resulting in a myriad of evolutionary theories. To illustrate this diversity, this article examines the work of Andrew Lang, a prolific late-nineteenth-century journalist, anthropologist, and fairy-tale enthusiast. I focus on two of his largely unstudied works to demonstrate how he exposed and critiqued Victorian assumptions about evolution and the origins of the theory. The first work, ‘Higgins, the Inventor of Evolution’ (1897), uses satire to reveal that evolution’s theoretical history was often overlooked in the nineteenth century. The second, The Princess Nobody (1884), is a children’s fairy tale that exemplifies how fairy-tale tropes can help modern readers grasp evolutionary ideas. Significantly, both works recycle older texts that also address evolutionary questions, making Lang a participant in a folkloric tradition of interpreting and critiquing evolutionary theory. Lang viewed evolutionary theory as similar to a mythic story that is told and reinterpreted through the generations. His writing demonstrates that the origins of evolutionary theory are ambiguous, and that traditional fairy tales convey ideas about human origins and kinship with animals that predate Darwin’s studies.

Somatic evolution of Cancer: A new synthesis

Cancers have been interpreted either as somatic evolution of cheater cells that escape replication regulation or alternatively as non-healing wounds. Both the interpretations have substantial support as well as glaring anomalies but the two have not been put together to make a coherent synthesis. We argue here that mechanisms and pathways to escape the normal regulation of cell proliferation do not need to evolve de novo. Mechanisms to override the normal regulation have already evolved for wound healing and tissue regeneration. Almost all of the hallmarks of cancer are also seen in the wound healing process. This suggests that cancer develops not by any de novo gain of function but by exaptation of pre-evolved wound healing functions. Somatic evolution that makes the wound healing triggers constitutive is not mutation limited but selection limited and the selective forces are dependent on the tissue microenvironment. Some mechanisms for such selection have been suggested. Many more need to be investigated. A series of mechanisms have evolved to minimize the risk of cancers which may fail in an altered lifestyle context. We support our synthesis with multiple lines of evidence and also make differential testable predictions. This evolutionary perspective challenges multiple prevalent ideas, suggests novel lines of research and also has translatable implications for cancer prevention.

The principles of justice and reasonable period in commercial procedure: the impact of the provisions of the European convention on human rights and the decisions of the European court of human rights on their implementation

The article is devoted to the study of the principles of judicial procedure enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, their impact on the implementation of commercial procedure in Ukraine, in particular, the standards of fair justice. The purpose of the article is to generalize and systematize approaches that exist in legal doctrine and law enforcement practice regarding the subject of research. The study of the principles of judicial procedure enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, the directions of their impact on the implementation of economic justice in Ukraine, including the standards of fair justice, is necessary and relevant for the further reform of economic procedural legislation.
 The article examines in detail the issue of the implementation of the principles of justice and reasonable terms of justice in economic litigation based on already existing scientific developments and current legislation. The methods used in the research allowed the author to come to the following conclusions. Legal mechanisms that ensure the implementation and protection of the evolutionary ideas of the fairness of justice are of crucial importance for the understanding by the participants of court proceedings of the very content of the economic process, the observance by the court and other participants of economic proceedings of the rights and freedoms established by law, the decision-making algorithm, which must meet the criteria of transparency and honesty and expediency, as well as understanding the controllability of the specified processes. As for the principle of a reasonable period, based on the positions of the researchers, it was determined that a reasonable period is considered as an objective (i.e. impartial, free from biased and subjective attitude) period necessary for the performance of all necessary procedural actions in economic litigation. A reasonable term is a period of time when court proceedings are objective in nature without significantly exceeding the framework established by law. The results of the research show that the practical judicial guidelines on the application of the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights and its fundamental freedoms, which are contained in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, contribute to the consistency of the approach of various national legal systems to the application of justice standards, including in commercial litigation.

Transhumanism: the friendly face of the overhuman and the comic book Superman

Abstract The core of the study is a critical comparison of Nietzsche’s notion of Übermensch, and its transhumanist rewriting into different variants of the posthuman. The first part contextualizes transhumanist thought, primarily in relation to certain evolutionary ideas that, in their totality, exhibit a fundamental anthropological deficit: they speak of the evolutionary overcoming of human, but the limit of sensibility that attempts to imagine a future human being is only the mere negation of what human has been so far. In this way, the posthuman is not removed from the somewhat vague context of the technological “extension” of previous humanity. In this respect, the whole concept is grossly unaesthetic. The second part shows that Nietzsche’s rethinking of the overhuman was intertwined with other anthropological structures, for example, the idea of Mitfreude (‘shared joy’), which is supposed to creatively (in the manner of art) replace the morally misleading notion of compassion. The Übermensch therefore enabled Nietzsche to propose a different conception of intersubjectivity; one that would no longer be reduced to contempt for the human being. The third section traces the causes of the transhumanist failure in productive imagination. It is based on the hypothesis that this failure is driven by an unconscious preference for the figure of the comic book Superman. It postulates, through a Kantian conception of the sublime, that an adequate elaboration of the image of the posthuman cannot do without an affective component that would allow for Bejahung (‘affirmation’). Only the artificial will always appear, to some degree, as alien, and therefore will never transcend the limits of reactive adaptation. A living posthuman could only emerge if he offered anthropological techniques of the art of living. Therefore, transhumanism continuously raises anthropological questions, especially regarding the problem of the extent to which the artificiality of art can be identified with technology. Without proper answers, it will not achieve the complexity of Nietzsche’s overhuman, and will always only dilute him into technological supplements. The posthuman will come into being when he is conceived as a grandiose work of art.

Genomic and comparative analysis of the T cell receptor gamma locus in two Equus species.

The genus Equus is the only extant genus of the Equidae family, which belongs to Perissodactyla, an order of mammals characterized by an odd number of toes (odd-toes ungulates). Taking advantage of the latest release of the genome assembly, we studied, for the first time in two organisms belonging to the Equus genus, the horse (Equus caballus) and the donkey (Equus asinus), the T cell receptor gamma (TRG) locus encoding the gamma chain of the γδ T cell receptor. Forty-five Variable (TRGV) genes belonging to the seven IMGT-NC validated mammalian TRGV subgroups, 25 Joining (TRGJ) and 17 Constant (TRGC) genes organized in 17 V-J-(J)-C cassettes, in tandem on about 1100 Kb, characterize the horse TRG locus, making the horse TRG locus the one with the greatest extension and with a significantly higher number of genes than the orthologous loci of the other mammalian species. A clonotype analysis of an RNA-seq transcriptomic dataset derived from spleen of an adult healthy horse, using the complete set of the horse TRGJ germline gene sequences as a probe, revealed that, in addition to the most prominent V-J rearrangements within each cassette, there is a relevant proportion of trans-cassette V-J recombination, whereby the same TRGV genes can recombine with different TRGJ genes spliced to the corresponding TRGC genes. This recombinant event strongly contributes to the diversity of the γ chain repertoire. In the donkey TRG locus, 34 TRGV, 21 TRGJ and 14 TRGC genes distributed in 14 V-J-(J)-C cassettes were found in a region of approximately 860 kb. Although the donkey's TRG is smaller than that of the horse, in Equus genus, this is still the second largest locus so far found in any mammalian species. Finally, the comparative analysis highlighted differences in size and gene content between the horse and donkey TRG loci, despite belonging to the same genus, indicating a good level of diversification within Equus. These data is in agreement with the evolutionary idea of the existence of a Equus recent common ancestor in rapid evolution, for which a mutation rate between horses and donkeys is more comparable to that between species belonging to different genera rather than to species of the same genus.

From Thin to Thick

This article argues that contemporary research practices in artificial intelligence will produce AI technologies incompatible with human flourishing, social complexity, or vibrant politics. Adopting James Scott's anarchist squint, it instead proposes a vision of AI that embraces local vernaculars, the multiplicity of objectives, the responsibilities that come with producing persons, and the potential of instigating rather than circumventing political contestation. To clarify the stakes, it draws on the key evolutionary idea of niche construction, contrasting the thin, universalizing, top‐down construction characteristic of contemporary AI with thick, local, and contested co‐construction. It also introduces the idea of semantic power, showing how AI's ability to impose objective functions on the world shapes our very categories of meaning. Finally, it calls for a new social science of possible worlds, outlining strategies for rigorous exploration of the imaginal world where unrealized but possible social arrangements reside.

METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF INNOVATIVE MODERNIZATION OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMY

The methodological tools of innovative modernization of the national economy are investigated.
 It has been determined that for theoretical substantiation of innovative modernization of the national economy, determination of trajectory and clarification of objective tendencies of evolutionary movement, forecasting prospects for formation of innovative system at the level of industry or economy as a whole, the most acceptable methodological platform is evolutionary approach.
 It is stated that the methodology of evolutionary approach is based on biological analogies, evolutionary language of Darwinism, mechanisms and elements of heredity, variability, selection, which determine the evolution of economic institutions. To transfer evolutionary ideas to the study of economic dynamics, a unit of selection is allocated, or an institution that has stability over time, the ability to change, can be transformed.
 It is argued that innovative changes in the national economy are complicated by the dual institutional basis of society and economic entities, which are not always motivated for competitive relations and innovative changes. It is emphasized that innovative modernization of the national economy requires a qualitatively different economic mechanism, which is focused on overcoming the technological lag and structural imbalance and implements the modern trend of economic growth on the basis of high-tech innovative production.
 It is substantiated that the process of modernization requires taking measures to form effective basic institutions of the national economy, efficiency of market mechanisms, mobilization of economic resources and scientific potential for the development of fundamental research and applied developments and implementation of a modern model of the innovation process. 
 It is proved that the methodological synergy of evolutionary and institutional approaches in studying the prospects for innovative modernization of the national economy determines the preservation of links between the essence and form of manifestations of innovations and allows analysing economic institutions in the process of evolution, exploring the influences of evolutionary mechanisms and provides a higher level of theoretical generalizations.

Abolitionism and Self-government. Dantès Bellegarde’s Participation in the Temporary Commission on Slavery of the League of Nations

In 1924, the League of Nations created a Temporary Commission on Slavery. For the first time in the organization’s history, a black person, the Haitian Dantès Bellegarde, was called to form part of a commission as an expert. This article explores Bellegarde’s role on the Commission. The Haitian expert showed himself to be the most radical of the members of that body. Although imbued with the hierarchical and evolutionary ideas in which all the work of the League was framed, Bellegarde was able to offer a serious critique of the colonial government, rarely heard at the League, centered on the issue of denouncing forced labour. In doing so, Bellegarde demonstrated a deep commitment to follow through on the promises of liberal internationalism about the need to enable colonial subjects, particularly in Africa, to develop their capacities for self-government.

STARTUP: META-ANALYSIS, VIABILITY ASSESSMENT, FORMATION OF CONDITIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS IN THE EDUCATIONAL SPHERE

The purpose of the article is the theoretical systematization of scientific approaches to the development of startup projects as a possibility of obtaining a commercialized effect based on combined implementation tools. The article presents a meta-analysis of evolutionary ideas about the development of startup projects in the global space from the standpoint of marketing, team-building, venture and innovative approaches. The directions of research on the formation of the startup environment are summarized: the construction of innovative business models, conditions for the creation of startup teams, the mechanism of venture investment of a startup, the implementation of startup solutions in the post-pandemic period of COVID-19. The author’s scheme for the implementation of projects in the startup format with the possibility of entering the stage of commercialization has been developed. The analysis of the forms of organization of startups in the form of small innovative enterprises in the educational environment is carried out, the dynamics of the development of startup ideas at the level of federal districts is presented. The key directions of support and development of startups in the educational environment are proposed – infrastructural, innovative, investment, partnership, economic, social. The results of the study can be used in updating strategic plans for the development of educational institutions as an additional source of investment profits and effective capital investments, as well as by executive authorities as an addition to the regional development strategy of the subject of the Russian Federation.

An Uneasy Alliance in the Battle of the Absolute: William James and George Holmes Howison

Abstract: The closing section of James's "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results" contains a surprisingly abrupt dismissal of Kant's philosophy. This paper suggests that James's real target is his host, George Holmes Howison, whose Philosophical Union had invited James to speak at Berkeley. James and Howison shared a common commitment to pluralism in opposition to the Absolute monism such as Josiah Royce was developing. Howison relies on Kant's account of the a priori as well as his moral ideal of a Kingdom of Ends in order to fashion a pluralistic form of |idealism that would avoid the errors he found in Absolute monism while also countering the influential evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer. While James shared Howison's opposition to monism, as well as his critical view of Spencer, he did not share his aversion to evolutionary ideas. Ultimately, the pragmatism that he announced at Berkeley would reply to Howison's Kantian approach by retaining a pluralism while building on the modern psychology growing out of evolution. James's position would test the alliance that they had forged against monism. In time, it would prove too fragile to withstand their growing differences until a final break came in the year before James's death.

An Uneasy Alliance in the Battle of the Absolute: William James and George Holmes Howison

Abstract: The closing section of James's "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results" contains a surprisingly abrupt dismissal of Kant's philosophy. This paper suggests that James's real target is his host, George Holmes Howison, whose Philosophical Union had invited James to speak at Berkeley. James and Howison shared a common commitment to pluralism in opposition to the Absolute monism such as Josiah Royce was developing. Howison relies on Kant's account of the a priori as well as his moral ideal of a Kingdom of Ends in order to fashion a pluralistic form of |idealism that would avoid the errors he found in Absolute monism while also countering the influential evolutionary philosophy of Herbert Spencer. While James shared Howison's opposition to monism, as well as his critical view of Spencer, he did not share his aversion to evolutionary ideas. Ultimately, the pragmatism that he announced at Berkeley would reply to Howison's Kantian approach by retaining a pluralism while building on the modern psychology growing out of evolution. James's position would test the alliance that they had forged against monism. In time, it would prove too fragile to withstand their growing differences until a final break came in the year before James's death.